Psyche: The Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality among the GreeksRohde, Erwin
Religion
Psyche: The Cult of Souls and Belief in Immortality among the Greeks
Rohde, Erwin
Greece -- Religion
[135\5: Among the Epizephyrian Locrians ~odu/resthai ouk e/stin epi\
toi=s teleutê/sasin, all' epeida\n ekkomi/sôsin, euôchou=ntai~,
Heraclid., _Pol._ 30, 2. In Keos the men never wear any sign of
mourning, though women mourn for a year for a son who dies young;
ib. 9, 4 (see Welcker, _Kl. Schr._ ii, 502). The funeral regulation
of Iulis (_SIG._ 877) published in imitation of Athenian usage
implies rather a tendency to exaggerated display of mourning, at
least among the common people.]
[136\5: e.g. Is. 2, 47: ~boêthê/sate kai\ hêmi=n kai\ ekei/nô| _tô=|
en Ha/idou o/nti_~. Strictly speaking no one can ~boêthei=n~ the
departed in Hades. Few nations have entirely escaped such
contradictions between a cult of the dead in the house or at a grave
and the conception of the relegation of the soul to an inaccessible
other world. They arise from two simultaneously existing mental
attitudes (representing also different stages of culture) towards
these obscure subjects. The naive theology of the common people
reconciles such discrepancies by attributing two souls to men, one
of which goes down to Hades while the other remains beside the
still-animated body and receives the offerings of the family: e.g.
North American Indians: Müller, _Ges. d. Amer. Urrel._ 66; cf.
Tylor, i, 434. These two souls are in reality the creation of two
mutually incompatible modes of thought.]
[137\5:--idne testamento cavebit is qui nobis quasi oraculum
ediderit nihil post mortem ad nos pertinere? Cic., _Fin._ ii,
102.--Besides Epic., Theophrastos seems to have made some
arrangement for the regular celebration of his memory (by the
associates of the Peripatos?). Harp. 139, 4 ff.: ~mê/pote de\
hu/steron neno/mistai to\ epi\ timê=| tinas tô=n _apothano/ntôn_
sunie/nai kai\ _orgeô=nas_ homoi/ôs ônoma/sthai; hôs e/sti sunidei=n
ek tô=n Theophra/stou diathêkô=n~. The will of Thphr. preserved by
D.L. 5, 2, 14, is silent on the point.] {209}
III
[138\5: Oracle ap. D. 43, 66 (cf. 67) ~toi=s apophthime/nois en
hiknoume/na| hame/ra| (en tai=s kathêkou/sais hême/rais, § 67)
telei=n tou\s kathê/kontas katta\ hagême/na.--ta\ hagême/na = ta\
nomizo/mena~ "the customary things" (Buttmann, _Ausf. Gramm._, § 113
n. 7, 1, p. 84 Lob.).]
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